How are Pilot actions / maneuvers / Talents adjudicated when used against GROUPS of opposing ships or vehicles.

Background: I plan to do a speeder bike chase / combat between a single PC speeder bike being chased by a lance of Imp scouts (sgt + 4 minion scouts). I might run them as either a "squadron" or a rival + minion group.

If the PC uses the "Brilliant Evasion" against the squadron, does he affect all FIVE of them? What if it's "rival + minions" and he uses it against the minion group? Is the entire squadron or the entire minion group unable to attack for the duration of that Talent?

If it was an attack, a hit (assuming no other effects) would simply take out a minion from a squadron. So should a defensive move reduce the number of "effective" minions rather than eliminate the entire group?

What if the Pilot uses the "Narrow Escape" signature ability - does that effectively end the scene?

If he uses "Gain the Advantage", does he do so against the entire squad?

i want the player to shine, but I'd also like to have an exciting scene that isn't simply ended by him pressing an "I win" button. I'm also using the answers to frame how a larger "classic SW" dogfight might go with several squadrons or minion groups against a small number of skilled PC's on speeder bikes or in snub-fighters.

thx!

- GM Khyrith

3 hours ago, Khyrith said:

If the PC uses the "Brilliant Evasion" against the squadron, does he affect all FIVE of them? What if it's "rival + minions" and he uses it against the minion group?

If he uses "Gain the Advantage", does he do so against the entire squad?

'I'll try spinning - that's a good trick!'

I treat minion groups or squads as a single opponent for these talents/actions. Both for simplicity and because it fits the narrative spirit of the game. In the case of a rival and minion group, the player would choose which he was targeting.

3 hours ago, Khyrith said:

What if the Pilot uses the "Narrow Escape" signature ability - does that effectively end the scene?

If the player has invested the xp to buy a signature ability, he/she should be allowed to use it. But remember, Narrow Escape only allows the character to flee the current encounter. The pack of Imps would still be out there, hunting.

A minion group is treated as a single character in most ways. So yes, if you Gain the Advantage on them, it works against the whole group. If you're using the Squad rules from the GM kit, you need to tell your players. They need to know that, while there may be five bad guys, there's one target. That said, if my players don't have minions, I don't usually use the Squad rules. Doing so just means that it's a duel between one bad guy and the player, but the first four times the player hits the Sergeant, it doesn't count for squat. If there's a whole bunch of players and you need that Sergeant to survive for a while, that's a little different, but maybe you should give the players more minion groups to fight.

On 6/2/2017 at 8:53 AM, Khyrith said:

How are Pilot actions / maneuvers / Talents adjudicated when used against GROUPS of opposing ships or vehicles.

Minion groups, as others have said, are essentially one character. They are a cheat, a way for the gm to say there's 10 doods in a scene, but only do the bookkeeping of one. While the narrative or specific effects may require this to be flexed a little (blast on a group of Engaged minions for example blasts them all) for most situations the minion group is just one character, mechanically speaking.

By extension a minion group that is squadded also becomes an extension of the squad leader. So again, if you're affecting the leader, you're affecting the Squad, though a squad has slightly more options.

On 6/2/2017 at 8:53 AM, Khyrith said:

If the PC uses the "Brilliant Evasion" against the squadron, does he affect all FIVE of them?

Yes. The question is if the leader gets a Triumph on something else, can he expend that Triumph to have the squad attack? (Probably) Also there is always the option to just detach a group from the squad and that's that.

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What if it's "rival + minions" and he uses it against the minion group? Is the entire squadron or the entire minion group unable to attack for the duration of that Talent?

If it's a minion group and a rival and they are not attached as a squad and he targets the minion group, the group as essentially a single character, can't attack. The Sgt, as a separate stand alone character, can still attack.

Though not in the long description of the talent it only prevents the opponents vehicle from attacking. So in The case of a speeder chase, especially if you use the personal range scales, the argument could be made that a biker could opt to use personal weapons.

On 6/2/2017 at 8:53 AM, Khyrith said:

If it was an attack, a hit (assuming no other effects) would simply take out a minion from a squadron. So should a defensive move reduce the number of "effective" minions rather than eliminate the entire group?

A feature of Squadrons is when they take a hit, the leader can opt to take the damage himself, or have the hit remove a squad member from play. It's leaders choice. Note this is by-hit, so a turbo laser blast will only remove one guy despite having sufficient damage to kill them all.

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What if the Pilot uses the "Narrow Escape" signature ability - does that effectively end the scene?

If everyone is in the vehicle with him... Yeah, that's kinda the point.

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If he uses "Gain the Advantage", does he do so against the entire squad?

Yes... Sort of. Again, he GtAs the squad, so they could conceivably detach members to bypass the effect. The leader and any attached members would continue to be .... advantaged? I'm gonna go with advantaged...

If you're talking about an unattached Sgt and a minion group, then he picks one to GtA and the other is not affected.

On 2.6.2017 at 8:40 PM, O the Owl said:

'I'll try spinning - that's a good trick!'

I treat minion groups or squads as a single opponent for these talents/actions. Both for simplicity and because it fits the narrative spirit of the game. In the case of a rival and minion group, the player would choose which he was targeting.

Naturally if the rival is using squadron rules to combine his abilities with the minion group, which he totally should, you naturally target the whole squadron, rival and minions together.
But GoM was already and yet again faster than me, so excuse my pointless rambling